Iran’s director to skip awards over Trump ban

Tehran: Oscar-winning Iranian director Asghar Farhadi has said that he will not attend the forthcoming Oscars Awards going to be held in Los Angeles, saying the US President Donald Trump’s visa ban on seven Muslim counters has enforced him not to join the event.

Iranian director Mr Farhadi has been nominated for the film “The Salesman”. He added that he had initially planned for attending the ceremony but he changed his mind due to Trump’s ban.
It is pertinent to mention here that Trump signed an executive order on Friday banning US visa issuance for seven Muslim countries including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

“I neither had the intention to not attend nor did I want to boycott the event as a show of objection, for I know that many in the American film industry and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are opposed to the fanaticism and extremism which are today taking place more than ever,” Farhadi said.

“However, it now seems that the possibility of this presence is being accompanied by ifs and buts which are in no way acceptable to me even if exceptions were to be made for my trip.”

The Iranian director went on to say that the hardliners in Iran and US are from same mentality.

“For years on both sides of the ocean, groups of hardliners have tried to present to their people unrealistic and fearful images of various nations and cultures in order to turn their differences into disagreements, their disagreements into enmities and their enmities into fears,” he aid.

“Instilling fear in the people is an important tool used to justify extremist and fanatic behavior by narrow-minded individuals.”

It is noteworthy here that leading actress of “The Salesman” Taraneh Alidoosti had already boycotted the Oscars Award over Trump’s racist visa ban.